I'm not going to go Biblical on
anyone and self-righteously admonish that he or she who is without sin let them
cast the first stone. However, that is just what's happened the past few weeks
with Joe Biden. He will, as I said a few months ago, officially jump into the 2020
presidential race. There was seemingly never any reason for him not to challenge
Trump.

He has massive name recognition.
He has the quasi-official imprimatur of centrist Democrats. That means he can
bag a small king's ransom in campaign money. He's got more public official experience
then all the other Democratic contenders. This includes his well-regarded stint
as Obama's VP. Even during his time as a non-presidential candidate, polls
showed him as the Democrat who consistently topped the Democratic presidential
contender field. He was widely believed the one, maybe only, Democrat who can
beat Trump.

But then it happened. First there
was the finger point that Joe is way too touchy, feely, a hugger, and grabber
of way too many women. This is sacrilege in the #metoo era. While that raised
more than a few eyebrows and threw a little cold water on the Biden bandwagon,
it didn't halt it.

But Joe's past is a far different
story. Joe's alleged political sins have been thrown up in his face and he's
been ruthlessly pounded for it. He committed his two greatest sins in the two
areas that are the most volatile, sensitive, and potentially game changing, for
any Democratic presidential candidate: race and gender. As a relatively young
senator in the 1970s, Joe loudly opposed bussing. So loudly, that he even briefly
made common cause with one of the most virulent, and outlandish, Senate racists,
Mississippi senator James Eastland. Decades later, Biden hasn't really done much
in the way of an apology for it. He really doesn't need to, since there a lot
of Blacks who also had doubts about whether bussing did anything to improve the
quality of their kids' education.

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Yet, his opposition tags him as a
guy that has a checkered racial past and raises suspicion that he may still
harbor some racial animus. That's a ludicrous stretch, Yet, it's a point that
almost certainly will be drudged up again at times during the campaign.

Then there's gender. Joe can
barely turn his head without someone hectoring him for not openly, publicly,
and formally apologizing to Anita Hill. He's expressed regret for how he did
nothing as Senate Judiciary chair during the Clarence Thomas SCOTUS
confirmation hearings in 1991, to stop the manhandling of Hill during her
testimony before the committee. His failure to formally apologize to Hill for
that alone wouldn't be much of a campaign killer if almost in the next breath he
wasn't finger pointed for his dogged opposition to abortion for years in the
Senate.

Biden eventually relented had his
epiphany on the issue and now is solidly pro-choice. Yet, as with the bussing
issue, this will be trotted out again and again during the campaign to paint
him if not as a closet right to lifer, someone who can't totally be trusted to be
a staunch abortion rights fighter if the SCOTUS eventually moves to try and
torpedo Roe v. Wade.

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In any other season, Joe's past
sins on these issues might not be a potential deal breaker. What's different
this time around is that no Democratic presidential contender has a prayer of
wining the Oval Office without energizing mid-income, college educated suburban
women and African-American voters in the five or six must win states. A big,
enthusiastic turnout from both groups is the only thing that can in part
neutralize the big turnout Trump will get from his base in those states. They
are less educated white male and female, blue collar and rural voters.

The assumption is that Joe has
enough gritty, working class appeal to pry some of those voters away from
Trump. That's an untested assumption, if not downright risky assumption, if
there ever was one. Countless surveys have shown that many of those voters aren't
in ecstasy over Trump solely because of his bring back the jobs phony promise.
Their lovefest with him is based on race, or rather racial fear, panic and naked
bigotry.

No amount of earthy, tough talk
from Joe is going to crack that with them. So that brings it back to revving up
Blacks and middle class, educated white women to march to the polls in big
numbers. The great lesson and mistake that should have been learned from 2016
is that banking on their loathing for everything that Trump represents won't ensure
their storming the polls to oust him. Joe will have to convince them that he's
the real deal in the fight for racial and gender justice. This is a tall order that
will get even taller if Joe's past sins on race and gender are held against
him. Let's hope the rocks stay rocks on the ground.

Earl
Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is the author of Why Black Lives Do Matter (Middle
Passage Press). He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on Radio One. He
is the host of the weekly Hutchinson Report on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles and the
Pacifica Network.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally acclaimed author and political analyst. He has authored ten books; his articles are published in newspapers and magazines nationally in the United States. Three of his books have been published in other (more...)

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